UCI men’s basketball team opens season at home Tuesday against University of Idaho

Jonathan Galloway is one of the Anteaters’ top returning players (Photo courtesy UCI Athletics)

UC Irvine’s men’s basketball team opens the season Tuesday night, hosting University of Idaho at 7 p.m. at the Bren Center.

The Anteaters then play at Texas A&M Friday, Nov. 9 in College Station before returning home on Monday, Nov. 12 to host Life Pacific.

UCI is coming off its sixth consecutive winning season. The Anteaters were 18-17 last season.

Head coach Russell Turner returns for his ninth season at the helm. Turner upped his career win total to 157 becoming the third coach in UCI history to eclipse 150 wins in a career and he’s done it in just eight seasons averaging nearly 20 wins a season. He trails to Anteater coaching greats Bill Mulligan (163 career wins) and Pat Douglass (197 career wins) who each reached the 150-win plateau in their 10th season

UCI was picked to finish first in the Big West pre-season poll, capturing 10 of the 24 first-place votes and 192 points.

Evan Leonard and Tommy Rutherford were selected to the six-player pre-season all-conference team. 

Also back is the Big West’s two-time defensive player of the year Jonathan Galloway, who is back for his final season. He led UCI in rebounding (7.6) and blocked shots (47) a year ago and is the 14th Anteater to reach 600 career rebounds.

Leonard is the team’s returning leading scorer at 13.6 points per game, topping the team in scoring in 15 games with 27 double-digit scoring games and nine times scoring 20 or more.

Leonard wound up among the Big West’s leaders in scoring, 10th at 13.6 ppg, as well as ninth in free throw percentage (.793), eighth in 3-point percentage (.396), fourth in threes made (67) and third in overall steals (48)

UCI added four new players to the roster this season including  grad transfer Robert Cartwright.

Cartwright graduated from Stanford last spring, playing three season for the Cardinal. He led Stanford in assist to turnover ratio at 2.14 last season, averaging 4.7 points and 2.3 assists. The Anteaters also welcome freshmen JC Butler, Devin Cole and Aiden Krause.